Summit on the Summit

Lupe Fiasco and others trying to make a change for the better. Gotta thank Kara for finding this article.

CLIMBER BLOG: Lupe Fiasco

WHY I JOINED SOTSK

One of the most utopian and challenging phenomenon of man is the process of trying to realize the ideal. To sculpt the tangible from what is the ether of the mind. It manifests in the artistic mind as a vision and translates in the world via the specific talents of the artist as a song, a painting, a poem, a sculpture, a building, etc. The ambitious among us try and take a crack at it in every category. I think the category that best fits this trek is dance. Expressing oneself through the movement of one’s own body. An inaudible rhythm that silently screams a message to the audience. A public sacrifice of sorts. Putting ones own body directly in the firing line of critics, risking humiliation and to the extreme even creating enemies of friends and friends of strangers. All because of a dance. The steps of this dance in particular are simple enough, one foot in front of the other. The stage is a harsh and meandering, chaotic thing. The cast is a mix of Juilliard graduates, street trained, pop-lock champions and downright hopeless amateurs. The music is all natural thunderclaps and raindrop drumsticks upon cold plastic rooftops. But the message is the real star of the show. The underlying manifesto is one of awe inspiring pageantry fit for carnival in the streets of Brazil or the main drags of New Orleans. It’s classic and new, unchanging but full of progression. Alvin Alley meets The Court Waltz. A “dance macabre” and the unfortunate ones amongst the skeletons are ignorance and complacency. So What’s The Message?!?

Let’s Change The World For The Better.

Inspire a generation to aspire to activate its humanity. Inform the uninformed and more importantly those deemed “uninformable.” An open-ended challenge to this world, and the one that was before it, to dance to the beat of a different drummer. Motivate the wall flowers and the rhythm-less to dominate the middle of the dance hall with uncompromising confidence.

So there you have it. And the most poignant and at the same time the most hopelessly corny wrap I can think of to finish this off is…